


Warm and Fuzzy

by Sapph



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:45:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapph/pseuds/Sapph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only threat is in his mind. It's an opponent she doesn't know how to take down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm and Fuzzy

It's not the scream that wakes her, but the jerking of his limbs before he escapes the throes of his nightmare. She grunts when his hand collides with the small of her back, snapping awake and rolling from the bed before she realizes the only threat is in his mind. It's an opponent she doesn't know how to take down.

 

Sitting on her knees on the rumpled cover, she watches as his body still suddenly, almost eerily so. His eyes are blown wide, glinting in the moonlight that slithers through the blinds, like a thin halo of deep gold around a black abyss of memories. The tears on his cheeks mock her inability to help and before she can change her mind she reaches out to comfort him, brushing the tips of her fingers against his cheekbones and sighing when he flinches.

 

“Ward,” she says in a hushed tone, one that is so soft and unsteady she doesn't even recognize her own voice. And neither does he, so it seems.

 

But he doesn't react with violence, like she would expect, doesn't lash out or recoil, instead she can only watch as his tall form is reduced to a curled ball of misery -there is no way to keep the sight from wrenching at her heart.

 

“I'm sorry,” he all but whimpers, and she knows he's not addressing her but an echo of the monsters that plague him.

 

She can relate -lord knows she has enough demons of her own- and though a part of her insists to let him deal with this on his own, she cannot stand to watch him suffer something that isn't real anymore.

 

Confident that he won't strike out, she moves closer, curving her body around his so they are almost touching. She can feel rather than hear his breathing quicken. His head is buried in his arms, so she reaches out to lightly stroke his hair. He shudders beneath her feather-like touch as she moves her hand down across his temple, before angling her fingers beneath his chin and coaxing his head upwards so his gaze meets hers -except his eyes flash in recognition and flicker away.

 

His body is no longer quivering with fear, instead it shutters with shame. She can feel the tension radiate from his figure.

 

She cradles his jaw and presses closer, sliding her fingers to the wispy hair on the back of his neck and throwing a leg over his thigh. The action seems to bring him back. He rears up to slam his lips against her, his rigid form uncurling to push and slide against hers. It is rough and desperate -and it is wrong.

 

“Grant,” she says, rolling so she's on top. He looks up at her, flushed and wild-eyed and every bone in her body urges her to take the pleasure he offers, to slide skin against skin and fall apart beneath his skilled touch -but she controls her desire, it does not control her.

 

She pulls his grip from her hips and laces their fingers together, bringing their interlocked hands up above his head. He freezes beneath her, and the look he gives her is apprehensive rather than lustful -she can almost see the ebbing tremors of the nightmare in the twitch of his jaw.

 

“Let me help,” she tells him. He looks confused and perhaps, she mulls sadly, even scared. He lifts his head in an attempt to kiss her, his fingers flexing beneath her own when he can't reach her.

 

“Let me help,” she repeats, ignoring the heat of his body between her thighs. He slumps back into the mattress and closes his eyes with a sigh.

 

“What do you want?” he asks after a few of minutes of tense silence. She shakes her head because he doesn't understand what she's trying to say. He cracks his eyes open slightly, and even shielded by his lashes his whisky-coloured gaze barrels into her.

 

“You can't keep running,” she tells him bluntly, “one day you're going to have to face what haunts you.” She can see the frost leak into his eyes and wonders if this is what she looks like when she shuts down.

 

“I thought I was here for sex,” he says in a disturbingly blank voice, “not pillow talk.” The lack of emotion in those words only makes them sound harsher, and she is confronted with the controlled distance stretched out between them.

 

“I thought I told you I wanted to help,” she retorts, but the sentence stumbles clumsily from her tongue. She's not good at this, not when she's herself and there is no target.

 

“I don't need fixing,” he bites out, and she is almost relieved to hear anger in his voice.

 

“No,” she replies, “people can't be fixed. They're not machines.”

 

Something flickers in his eyes that is dark and resentful. It takes her aback but she schools her features and releases his hands, sitting back. He doesn't move from the cage of her thighs, doesn't even bother to lower his arms; the stillness of his body matches the pregnant silence between them.

 

“Do you-” he breaks off, wetting his lips. She can't stop her gaze from snapping to the action, but doesn't react in any other manner, resolved to wait patiently and listen to whatever he wants to tell her. For a moment it looks like he's decided to remain quiet.

 

“It's just a bad dream,” he says, but his tone is too pleading for her to be satisfied with his reply.

 

“Was it always just a dream?” she spurs.

 

He stares at her for a while before his gaze falls to her side . “No,” he admits.

 

She nods. “Do you want to talk?”

 

“No.”

 

“That's okay,” she tells him, sliding off his form and laying down on the mattress. “We can just sleep.”

 

He turns his head to look at her, something akin to suspicion in his eyes. It's as if he expects her to prod further or jump his bones now that they're done talking. She's not that cruel, or desperate.

 

“Sometimes I would hide,” he says in a hushed voice after a few minutes of silence, “and he would hurt someone else.”

 

The guilt in his voice is raw and painful to hear. She closes her eyes and clamps down on the sigh that swells in her chest. She doesn't ask who he's talking about. Instead, she slides her arm around his waist and rests her cheek on his shoulder.

 

She feels guilty for promising to help when she doesn't know how.


End file.
